


Giraffic Jam

by runningwithdinosaurs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Crack, First Kiss, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Racing, Snark, Terrible Jokes are Terrible, commuting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningwithdinosaurs/pseuds/runningwithdinosaurs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek Hale never thought it would become a *thing* when he almost hit Stiles with his car on his way to work. But it does.</p>
<p>Somehow, Derek finds himself racing a kid on a bike to work every morning and listening to terrible jokes along the way.</p>
<p>Derek never thought his commute would be the best part of his day, but that was before he met Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giraffic Jam

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! so, this little plot bunny has been eating at me since I saw a cute guy on a bike one day on my way home from work. I thought it was funny because I'd pass him, but then hit traffic and he'd pass me. it went on for a while and by the end we were both laughing. so, have my sterek interpretation. also, the final chapter of "Off Script" is a thing that will totally be happening in the near future, hopefully. enjoy!

It starts when Derek almost, maybe, _just a little bit_...practically runs the kid right off the road  during his morning commute.

It’s not _Derek’s_ fault that the kid wasn’t watching where he was going. Flying down the road on that bright blue bicycle clad in an equally glaring red hoodie, someone was _bound_ to miss him. Derek did the kid a favor, really. Now he’ll know to dress more appropriately for Manhattan rush hour traffic. Kids these days and their primary colors.

After Derek swerves back into the middle of his lane, away from the curb, the kid just comes to a screeching halt, shoulders tense. Derek inches his car forward, sitting directly on the tail of the Bentley in front of him, and pulls even to the kid. Derek expects to be glared at or flipped the bird. So when the kid sends him a jaunty wink and a sarcastic salute, Derek can’t help but be taken aback.

Traffic starts to move in front of him and Derek throws one last glance at the kid who he almost maimed. No, _grazed_. Maimed is such a strong word. The kid, who actually appears to be closer to late teens or young adult status, watches him roll away with a complicated expression Derek decides not to parse out. Feeling generous and needing to build good karma, Derek flips on his blinker for the guy behind him and then starts to turn. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but the last thing he does before he loses sight of the bike guy is to send him an equally sarcastic wave.

Derek will never see him again, that’s for sure.

Which is why, when traffic locks up again four blocks later and Derek is settling in for the long haul, he almost has a heart attack when someone knocks on his passenger-side window. It’s the bike guy and he has a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. He tilts his head toward Derek’s car, then at the deadlocked cars in front of him. His lower lip pouts out and he wipes an imaginary tear from his eye. Then he winks _again_ and zips off down the street, just like that. Like it’s a race. How childish.

But, Derek scowls, if it’s a race, bike guy is currently winning. And he can’t stand for that.

As soon as the traffic clears slightly, Derek merges into the left lane. He continues up the street, sliding his car into every hole whether it’s big enough or not (ha, he’s funny in the mornings). People always back off (except for a guy in a POS Civic from the late 90s who Derek glares into submission). He _knows_ it’s ridiculous to be trying to catch the kid, especially since it’s like 95 percent likely that the bicyclist turned off of the main street onto a side road a while ago.

Yet exhilaration burns bright in his chest when he spots his target pedaling hard about twenty feet away. Derek slows down as he draws even with the bike. The guy ignores him for a few moments, but then his head quirks and he glances over at the car keeping pace with him. His eyes widen comically and he gapes as Derek rolls down his window.

Derek quite suddenly realizes he has not prepared a witty retort for this moment. Internally berating himself, he pastes on a smirk and purrs, “Caught ya.”

The guy’s mouth works soundlessly and Derek steps on the gas, victory assured. Just before he screeches away, though, the guy yells, “Not for long!” and cuts sharply down an alleyway.

Derek grins. It is so on.

***

And so life continues. Derek gets up, goes to work, comes home and repeats. He still calls his mom on Fridays at lunch, skypes with Laura and Cora on Sunday and works out with Boyd on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Nothing’s changed.

Except his commute.

Sure, he drives exactly the same way and it takes the same amount of time. But everything is different. Because every morning, Stiles pulls up alongside the Camaro and they race. Over the course of the two months of mornings he’s been doing this, he’s learned that Stiles is always on his way to his work-study job at NYU. He always turns onto West 4th Street toward Greenwich Village and Derek continues on Broadway toward Battery Park. But Derek looks forward to the twenty-five or so blocks they traverse together. Stiles always joins him at 29th and Broadway at 8:25. Derek hasn’t ever waited for him though, if Stiles is running late. Nope.

Ok, so he’s waited twice.

After that first morning of near murder and its resulting hijinks (Derek totally won their race for real that first time), Derek sees Stiles every morning. At first, Stiles just gives him a little eyebrow raise in challenge and they both try their hardest to beat the other. For every time Stiles triumphantly races away when Derek gets stuck at a light or behind another car, there’s an equal amount of Derek revving his engine as he flies past Stiles pedaling his heart out.

It’s not until the second week of this that they exchange words again.

Derek is stuck behind a moving van, two double-parked taxis and someone from Connecticut: a lethal combination that means he won’t be going anywhere for a while. Stiles finally catches up to him, breathing heavily, and leans his entire body against the Camaro. Derek immediately rolls down the window.

“Hey, hands off the goods.”

“That’s what she said,” Stiles smirks, not moving from his semi-reclining position. At Derek’s dark look, Stiles sighs. “Look, I had a late night, ok? Geez.”

“The good or bad kind?” Derek asks, not really sure why he’s continuing to make conversation.

“Bad,” Stiles rubs his eyes. “I had to talk my best friend from back home down after his childhood sweetheart broke up with him _again_ while also trying to finish a twenty-page paper. It was awesome.”

Derek winces in sympathy. “Sucks.”

A chuckle bursts out of Stiles. “Succinct.”

***

It isn’t until the next Monday that Stiles tells Derek his name.

“Call me Stiles, man. If we’re gonna have life-threatening commuter races every morning, we should at least be able to identify the other’s body, ya know?”

“You’d actually _want_ to be identified as _Stiles_?” Derek scrunches his eyebrows together.

“Whoa, put those away, dude!” Stiles cries. “And yes, that is how I’d like you to identify my poor, lifeless body if I should fall in combat.” He puts a hand solemnly over his heart. “My body may perish, but my soul will go on. And I will _surely_ beat you then. ‘Cause ghosts are fast and non corporeal and shit,” he adds with a toothy grin.

Derek raises his eyes heavenward.

***

A week later, the jokes start.

“Hey, Derek, I’ve been wondering something for a while now,” Stiles says, tapping his fingers idly on the lip of the passenger window.

“Shoot,” Derek replies, wondering if they’ve finally reached the overshare part of this odd arrangement. Of course, in Derek’s eyes, Stiles’s _name_ was an overshare, so…

Stiles pauses, looking thoughtful. “If you smuggle cars into a foreign country, is it called trafficking?” He wiggles his eyebrows at the standstill in front of Derek.

Derek blinks at him.

“Trafficking!” Stiles repeats. “Get it? Cause you’re stuck in traffic…” he trails off at Derek’s downturned mouth.

“I got it,” Derek rolls his eyes. “I was just too busy losing respect for you to respond.”

Instead of being offended, Stiles grins. “Challenge accepted.”

“I offered no challenge.”

“I’ll get you to laugh at one of my jokes, you’ll see!” And Stiles races away, cackling maniacally, while Derek curses the 4x4 in front of him who’s apparently never driven on a road before.

***

The jokes become a daily thing after that.

“What did the traffic light say to the car?” Stiles asks, rocking back on his heels.

Derek says nothing.

“Don’t look, I’m changing.”

Derek still says nothing.

Stiles shrugs.

***

“Why does a traffic light turn red?”

“Oh, enlighten me.”

“If you had to change in front of everyone, you'd turn red, too.”

“I hate you.”

***

“So, a cop pulls over a carload of nuns. The cop says to the driver, ‘Sister, this is a 65 mile per hour highway—why are you going so slow?’ The nun replies, ‘Sir, I saw a lot of signs that said 22, not 65.’ The cop responds, ‘Oh, sister, that's not the speed limit, that's the name of the highway you're on!’ ‘Oh! Silly me!’ the nun laughs. ‘Thanks for letting me know. I'll be more careful.’ At this point, the cop looks in the backseat where the other nuns are shaking and trembling. He asks, ‘Excuse me, Sister, what's wrong with your friends back there? They're shaking something terrible.’ The nun replies, ‘Oh, we just got off of highway 119.”

Derek’s lips twitch.

Stiles throws his arms up in victory, but Derek shakes his head. “Doesn’t count.”

Stiles pouts.

***

Derek knows it’s weird that it’s been going on for over two months and he still doesn’t know more about Stiles than that he goes to NYU, rides a bicycle, tells terrible jokes to make Derek laugh and smiles like a ray of sunshine.

But there’s something about Stiles that… well, that makes Derek look forward to the morning commute in a way he’s almost positive no other New Yorker does. Except for maybe another sap like him.

But this morning, Stiles is late. Stiles is later than he’s ever been. Those other two times, he was about five minutes late. But it’s edging closer and closer to quarter to nine and Derek is starting to panic. Stiles has never missed their commute. He knows, rationally, that he should just pull away from his illegal parking spot between a “No Stopping or Standing” sign and a fire hydrant and continue on his way to work, but something drives him to instead circle the block and start down 29th Street in the direction from which Stiles always comes.

He sees the flashing police lights and the ambulance and he knows. With a hollow pang in his clenching stomach, Derek stumbles out of the Camaro and toward the scene.

Sure enough, once he pushes through the nosy onlookers, he spots a familiar red hoodie looking redder than usual on the ground.

“Sir, you’ll just need to-”

“No!” Derek growls. “That’s my best friend.”

Which, of course, Derek realizes, is completely true.

The officer lets Derek past and he collapses to his knees next to Stiles’s motionless body. He tries to ignore the EMTs who are desperately applying pressure to the jagged hole in Stiles’s side.

“Stiles?” he whispers. “Stiles, what happened?”

“A pickup stopped short and one of the metal rods it was transporting clipped the kid in the side when it flew off the truck,” the EMT answers.

Derek nods and tries again. “Stiles?”

Somehow, Stiles’s beautiful amber eyes slide open and he coughs harshly before catching sight of Derek. That amazing smile blossoms on his blood-spattered face.

“Derek!”

“I’m here,” Derek assures him, just managing to stop himself from reaching out to touch Stiles’s jaw.

“I’m so glad,” Stiles slurs. “I have, like, _the_ most important question for you.”

Derek stops breathing. “Yes?”

Stiles’s smile widens. “What do you get when two giraffes collide? A _giraffic jam_!”

Derek bursts into hysterical, exhausted, ecstatic laughter.

Stiles punches his fist in the air weakly and promptly passes out.

***

Derek doesn’t see Stiles for a while. The EMTs wouldn’t let him into the ambulance, since it was at their discretion and Derek was just some dude that showed up out of nowhere. And ‘Stiles’ apparently was actually just a nickname (Derek _knew_ no parent would inflict that on their child) and he didn’t know Stiles’s last name, so… nothing.

Nothing for two weeks.

He waits every morning at their corner, for a lot longer than he should. With a sigh, he pulls away from the curb at nine o’clock and merges back into the line of slow-moving cars. The traffic moves about two feet and then stops. Derek resigns himself to lonely, depressing commutes for the rest of his life—the way things used to be before Stiles. There’s so much they didn’t talk about, that Derek didn’t tell him, like why he drives to work every morning instead of using public transportation (one, he loves his car more than life itself, ok? And two, buses and subways are very unpleasant for people with werewolf senses. Of course, that would mean telling Stiles about the whole werewolf thing and he doesn’t even know the guy’s real first name yet) or why he was in New York in the first place (your crazy ex-girlfriend trying to burn your family’s house to the ground and almost murdering said family would drive a lot of people into leaving their hometown).

He doesn’t know what Stiles is studying or why he chose NYU or if Scott and Allison have gotten back together yet (he may not talk about himself much, but _Lord_ did Stiles talk about his best friend’s love life a lot). And now he might never know. Derek sighs again. He’s also pretty sure he didn’t sigh this much in the BS (Before Stiles) time of his life, either.

Surely someone upstairs is making fun of him, because it is at that exact moment that someone raps sharply on his passenger-side window.

And of course it’s Stiles.

Derek immediately rolls down the window, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. What do you say to a guy you barely know but are pretty sure you’re in love with?

Stiles saves him the effort. “Why did the investment banker abandon his commute to go looking for the grad student?” Stiles asks, his mouth a flat line.

Derek could cry at the familiarity. “I don’t know, why?”

Stiles rubs his eyes. “No, I’m asking you. It’s not a joke. Though, I can see why you’d think I have a problem being serious.”

Derek’s brain stutters to a halt. “Wait, _what_?”

Stiles groans and looks like he’s about to prostrate himself against the car like he does every morning, but holds himself back at the last minute. “Why’d you come find me, Derek? I mean, a lot is hazy from that morning, but one thing I clearly remember is telling you my awful giraffe joke.” A startled look passes over Stiles’s face. “I didn’t imagine that, did I?”

“No!” Derek assures him. “No, I was there.”

“Why?”

The ball is so firmly in Derek’s court that he could play keep-away with it forever if he wanted. But as emotionally-stunted as he feels most of the time, he’s an adult and he knows how he feels about Stiles. He can do this.

“I love you.”

“WHAT?” Stiles screeches, collapsing against the car for real this time.

Derek smacks his forehead against the steering wheel. “That is _not_ what I meant to say.”

“So you don’t love me?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Stiles deflates a little.

“No, damnit, Stiles,” Derek turns toward him as much as the Camaro’s driver’s seat will allow (which is not far). “That’s not what I meant either. I…”

What? Think I could love you? Like you? Want to marry you and commute with you to work every morning until we’re little old men driving hover cars?

“I look forward to my morning commute more than just about anything in my life.”

“Oh.”

“But only since I met you.”

“Oh,” Stiles’s forced look of indifference morphs into possibly the giddiest smile Derek has ever seen. “Oh!”

And Stiles throws himself through the open window, ending up sprawled awkwardly half over the passenger seat and half over the gear shift, before he gets his act together and clambers into Derek’s lap.

Stiles freezes. “Oh my god, this _is_ what you meant, right? Not just that we’re like BFFs who’ll braid each other’s hair or-”

Derek reaches for the lever and the seat jumps back to give Stiles more room. With a grin, he settles his hands on Stiles’s waist and raises an eyebrow. Stiles beams and proceeds to kiss the living daylights out of him. Derek’s hands slide down and tighten on Stiles’s hips and he’s sure the other man can feel the wide smile he’s sporting through their kiss.

Stiles kisses like he does everything else—with intense focus and joy...and a little mischief too. Stiles nips at his lower lip as the kiss briefly breaks and Derek pulls him even closer, intent on showing Stiles just how much he means to him.

Throughout it all, the cacophony of angry honking at the car parked directly in the middle of an otherwise empty road rings pleasantly through the air.

**The End.  
**

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! if you want, we can [tumble](http://runwiththisdinosaur.tumblr.com/) together. just saying.


End file.
